The Fall
by Ondine03
Summary: What if Scarlett had succeeded in convincing Rhett to come back to live with them, but that reality is quite different than she had hoped for?
1. Chapter 1

Scarlett came into the room, and stopped at the doorway for a moment, struck by the stillness and, suddenly, by an almost superstitious dread.

Rhett had turned around on his stomach, the white sheets exposing his back and one arm dangling down the side of the bed. The August night was balmy and the crickets were, for once, nothing more than a background symphony vaguely pleasant to her ears. She saw the criss-crossing of scratches on his skin and the bruises which had by now turned an ugly purple. His dark hair shone but his face was turned away and she could not see nothing else of his face but the bulky bandage over his left eye.

Blind fear made her stumble towards the bed to see if he was still breathing. There was a slight ripple of muscles beneath the skin, enough to tell her he was alive, and, even in his drug induced stupor, in pain and uncomfortable. She stretched out a hand, slowly, and laid it on his shoulder to check his temperature. He was burning. She felt the muscles tense up under her touch, as if even that slight movement was disturbing his dreams. She got up, and returned to his side five minutes later with a flask of scented oil in her hand that she had brought from Paris and never used.

She opened it slowly, inhaling the soft floral aroma and would have smiled under any other circumstances at the thought of using something so feminine on Rhett. She had bought it one gentle afternoon in a small store by the Seine years ago on one of their trips, when the French spring air had made her foolish and hopeful, when she still nursed fantasies of making him connect with her somehow. It had sat in her drawer for years and she had never had the courage to even bring it up. Not during the trip, and not later.

She breathed in, and then out. She was past that.

She warmed a fair amount in her hand, and then slowly, cautiously, smoothed her hands over his back and his shoulders. She wouldn't have dared had she had any thought he was awake. She felt the knotted muscles of his shoulders tense under her hands, then relax. In her dreamlike state, she gently moved her hands over his back, his upper harms, and then, hesitatingly, his buttocks and his thighs. She perceived a slight movement and instantly stopped, waiting for him to wake up after all and catch her hands like he had done during the few times in the past years when she had made a shy, awkward attempt to explore his body, but he remained still. Scarlett breathed a sigh of relief.

She became more daring, gently massaging his legs and his feet and then his shoulders, arms and neck for what seemed like hours. She allowed herself to glory in the smooth feel of his skin under her fingers, feeling slightly guilty, knowing she was taking liberties he wouldn't have permitted had he been in the possession of his senses. However, Scarlett had never been one to concern herself with minor ethical inconsistencies. The muscles had relaxed under her fingers and his whole body seemed more peaceful, as if it too was drinking its fill of touch after years of denial by whatever it was Rhett Butler would call it, revenge or self-control, or, simply, emptiness. She didn't know and she didn't care anymore. Sleeping, he was nothing more than a sleek, injured, feverish animal and her hands were soothing.

When she was done, she leaned forwards and pressed her lips against the small of his back, just once, in case this was her last chance, in case he died now or thirty years later never giving her a chance to touch him like this again. She closed the flask, and returned it to its hiding place in her drawer. She then laid down on the sofa across from his bed, drawing the blanket over herself, dark tresses framing her face and making her look like a girl again. She fell asleep almost instantly.

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I want to play with the characters and I promise I will give them back when I'm done. _

_PS: This chapter and some of the following contain minor edits, mostly the moving of information back and forth between the first chapters and future chapters that haven't yet been published. I apologize to those who were confused!_


	2. Chapter 2

"Mommy. Daddy smells like _flowers_."

Scarlett fought her way though vague dreams and disconcerting fog back to reality, and discovered with a jolt that it was morning and her four year-old son, Garreth, had made his way into the room and was standing next to the bed with a quizzical expression on his face.

She got up slowly from the sofa, the blankets falling from her form to a pool on the floor in a disorganized heap. "Yes, dear. Flowers. Have you had breakfast?" Her eyes quickly went over Rhett, who seemed unchanged from the night before but appeared to be resting peacefully.

Garreth studied him too, the sunlight filtering through the curtains and bringing out the red in his auburn hair. His hair had always been much lighter than it had any right to be as the supposed offspring of two raven-haired people, or so the rest of Atlanta had thought. His eyes, too, were different, not black like Rhett's or emerald like Scarlett's but a more common green shot with hazel, deep like mossy forest ponds full of secrets. Scarlett knew that there was gossip about Garreth's paternity and she suspected more than she knew that it had come to Rhett's ears as well. She had no idea if he gave the rumours any credence. They did not talk about such things.

"Let's go to the kitchen". She stretched out her hand to Garreth but he ignored her. Scarlett sighed. Garreth's particular brand of stubbornness was different from Bonnie's or even her own but no less effective. He heard only when he wanted to hear. He was an unusually handsome boy but the astonishing thing about him was not his looks but an inner serenity, a fluid grace in his movements and a poise unusual for any four year old and especially strange given the kind of household he had grown up in. He had the vocabulary of a six year old and the mind of a changeling from the fairy countries and there was no guessing at what he was thinking.

Scarlett, in those moments of irony which started visiting her with increasing frequency as the years and her marriage dragged on, would reflect at times that the gossipers must be right because there was no way in hell she and Rhett could have produced and raised something like Garreth. At the age of four, he was already even more of an enigma than even Rhett had ever been.

Garreth, having contemplated the room, his father and the floral scent to his content and come to goodness knew what conclusion, was now willing to go eat breakfast. They descended down the stairs, Garreth as usual refusing her hand and stepping precisely downwards. He never fell.

The kitchen was light and airy with a large central wooden table the children usually ate on. Ella was already up and dressed, smiling shyly at her mother, in that awkward stage of not-quite womanhood where everything seems fraught with pitfalls and meanings. They had moved to this two-story house in a refined, modest neighbourhood before Garreth's birth when Scarlett had still trashed around for something, anything, to get through the chilling blandness of Rhett's attitude. She had proposed the move and he had shrugged, obviously not caring if they went or stayed. She had found the house, asked her in-laws to help her with the decorations to cater to Rhett's taste, and spent much too much money on, in her opinion, dingy curtains and carpets and dispiriting oil paintings and it had all been for nothing. Now they divided their time between the house and Dunmore Landing for most of the year since Garreth's birth had put a temporary end to travelling.

She thought suddenly how much she missed Wade, who had left for Harvard several years ago. His quiet, kind presence had been another pillar of strength she didn't value sufficiently until it was suddenly gone.

The story of her life, one could say.

Dilcey fixed Garreth and Ella breakfast and made a tray of soup at Scarletts request. Mammy was probably still sleeping, the privilege of being a cherished member of the household who was old and frail. Loosing Mammy was another thing Scarlett didn't even want to contemplate. The young nanny whom Scarlett had hired to help Mammy asked about Rhett, and told Scarlett she would be taking the children to a walk in the park and not to worry about anything and to concentrate on Captain Butler. Scarlett thanked her, gave Ella a kiss on her rosy cheek and ran her hand quickly though Garreth' hair before going back up the stairs with the tray in her hand.

She set the tray down on a side table in the hallway, braced herself, and pushed open the door to the bedroom.


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks for the reviews! I've been enjoying your stories so much and can't believe how many gifted writers are on this site. Dixie Cross, I know the intro was more appetizer than main dish but I hope that changes.

Disclaimer: Own nothing. Just using MM's characters as toys. Will return undamaged.

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The first thing she noticed is that he was sitting up.

The second thing was that he had taken off the bandage from his left eye. It had turned an interesting shade of purple and was swollen almost completely shut but the seemed otherwise undamaged. The gash on his temple was caked with dark blood, covering the stitches Dr Meade had made.

"Would you kindly inform me what happened"?

It was strange to hear him speak. He hadn't spoken for three days. Or five years, come to think of it. But Dr Meade had said that if he woke up at all he would probably recover completely from his head injury. She felt relief flood her body, and that relief made her contrarily speak harsher than she had intended.

"You fell of that …..horse. By the Merriwether bakery. In broad daylight. Rene saw you fall and called for help and he and the other men brought you home. They told me that insane beast you call a horse suddenly reared and threw you." She shook her head to drive the image of him, twisted, bleeding, out of her mind. "I can't imagine what you were doing there in the first place."

He ran a hand through his hair and flinched. "Your imagination has thankfully always been quite limited".

Scarlett blinked and her eyes turned into astonished emerald orbs. That was almost an insult. And a woefully inadequate insult at that. From Rhett, who hadn't bothered to insult her in almost half a decade, and had wielded a much more sophisticated rapier at his height. He was clearly out of practice. But still, that it happened at all was nothing short of astonishing. Enough to make a woman nostalgic. If he did it again she might swoon.

She grinned to herself and refused to take the bait. He looked at her narrowly out of his good eye as if he for once couldn't quite make her out. "They brought you in covered in blood and completely knocked out. " She didn't tell him she had been terrified. If there was once thing she had experience with it was head injuries, and it didn't bear thinking about. Dr Meade had told her head wounds always bleed terribly even if they are superficial, that the gash meant nothing and that the real danger would be invisible, internal hemorrhage in the scull, but she had initially been unable to hear him in her complete and utter panic at seeing him like this. All she could think of was Bonnie, and Pa. And now Rhett.

"How long was I …?" Rhett's voice jolted her back to reality.

"Three days".

"Good God". He ran his hand through his hair again, his fingertips tracing the contours of the wound and then ran over his right eyelid. She anticipated the question before he asked.

"Dr Meade said your eye is just swollen but he believes your sight wasn't damaged. We were all much more worried about your head. Dr Meade said the fall could have easily killed you.

"Sorry to disappoint you."

"Don't apologize. It wasn't your fault". She grinned again, giddy with having him back and giddy even with trading barbs. Almost like the old times. Strange how the old days, even at their worst, seemed gilded after five years in the desert. She should have knocked him over the head years ago, preferably with a frying pan. Not that she expected this newly-found odd humour to last; once he recovered he would remember the blandness and slide back behind it, she was fairly certain. But he was alive.

She remembered the tray.

"You should eat something. We've been feeding you soup for the past three days but maybe you want something different."

"Soup is fine".

She decided to take advantage of his apparent docility and brought the tray next to his bed. Relief made her daring and she pushed lightly against his chest to make him lie back against the pillows and he complied, as if his body and she had formed a conspiracy while he was sleeping that his cold mind was not privy to. Especially after last night. She blushed at the thought and again caught a fleeting expression of surprise in his eyes, if at himself or her she couldn't make out.

"Let me help you."

"I can manage." He took the tray and placed it on his knees, trying to feed himself from the bowl but succeeding only in spilling the content of the spoon on the tray. Scarlett shook her head.

"You're making a mess. You just woke up. I said let me help you".

Not taking no for an answer, she held the spoon to his lips, green eyes flashing and daring him to defy her. The whole situation reminded her of the soldiers they had nursed at Tara during the war, and unconsciously she adopted the same haughty tone and mannerism she had used with those poor boys. Rhett's lips twitched. It was a nothing but a bare, faint echo of his old sardonic amusement and she knew she was reading entirely too much into it but hoped she wouldn't faint, or make a complete fool out of herself, or get any redder than she already felt herself to be. She managed to feed him about half a bowl but she could tell he was getting tired.

"You seem slightly flushed, Mrs Butler", he drawled. "I hope taking care of me wasn't too draining for your constitution." Of course, he had noticed.

Scarlett looked down, and then, raising her head, gave him a strange, unguarded look. "I am tired. I was sick with worry and I couldn't sleep. I think I slept about four hours in the last three days. " The weariness showed in her face and the shadows under her eyes but the complete absence of guile or pretence gave her face the almost inhuman clarity of an Italian Madonna. The adrenaline pumping through her body and keeping her upright while she feared for his life now deserted her, leaving her feeling more exhausted than she ever had in her life. She needed to leave.

She gathered the rest of the soup and the spoon on her tray, smiled absently at Rhett and turned to go. "We should probably both get some rest".

"Scarlett".

She turned back but didn't look at him. She had reached the limit of her endurance and just wanted to get away.

"Thank you."


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer - all characters belong to MM and her estate. I just amuse myself. Thanks for the reviews - Helen SES, your comment made me laugh. Remind me to tell you the email I accidentally sent to the wrong guy, way back in my wild days. Technology is a curse. It's a good thing I am so peaceful now.

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The Fall - Chapter 4

Scarlett's vision of sleep dissolved at the sound of a carriage drawing up in front of the house, a knock on the front door, and a burst of voices into the hallway. Miss Eleanore and Rosemary had arrived, attired in sensible dark travel clothes as usual, and surrounded by a sea of luggage. Scarlett had sent for them after Rhett's accident, and they had apparently started for Atlanta as soon as the message reached them. How happy she was to have glad tidings.

Scarlett 's smile and the joy on her glowing face, running down the flight of stairs to meet them, told them more rapidly than words could have that he was better. They exhaled visibly, took her hands and kissed her, smiling with happiness.

"He just woke up. He is going to be alright". Scarlett would have been overjoyed to see them at any other time, when she was not so tired and so drained. Rosemary had become a close friend since the birth of Garreth and Butler family's frequent presence at the plantation had welded them into sisters. Relieved of her anxiety for her brother's life, Rosemary kept up a stream of inconsequential chatter Scarlett would have found diverting had she not been so tired. Miss Eleanore, formidable even in her seventies but growing frailer with each season, looked like she could use rest herself.

Scarlett had ordered rooms prepared, and after refreshments, brief talk about their journey and Rhett's improved condition she left them to settle in. Having seen to their needs, the exhaustion that she had felt earlier suddenly intensified to a degree that she was staring to lose command of her limbs. She finally crumpled down on the day bed in her private parlor, not wanting to disturb Rhett, and still sleep eluded her.

~~~~88~~~~~

Three months after he had first left he had arrived back at the house without warning, without giving her a chance to prepare either herself or the household, and his dead eyes had taken in her thinness, the pained drawn faces of Wade and Ella, as well as her own pitiful joy at his presence. She had spared herself no degradation in her delight, determined not to waste her chance to sweep him off his feet. She had simpered, fluttered and cooed like a rabid sparrow all throughout dinner. She had even gone into his bedroom at night, wearing what she thought was her most attractive, clinging nightgown, but he had slept or feigned sleep and she had retreated on the receding tide of her audacity, leaving the last shreds of her dignity behind. She couldn't think back to that time without feeling utterly humiliated.

The next day, he had offered to stay for good.

She had felt a premature flush of triumph, looking up into his eyes to search for the ardent flame of desire she felt sure she must have inspired, but encountered nothing but the blandness whose name she did not yet know but which even then poised itself to be her most reliable companion in the long years to come. She had not know it then, her mind full of victory bells, for surly it meant he loved her.

"Why did you change your mind?" She had asked, coyly, hoping to draw him out after all to declarations of love, hoping -

He had sighed.

"It doesn't matter although it should be painfully obvious to anyone. I would ask you if you have given this newfound desire of yours sufficient thought but I know that would be an unreasonable expectation given you rarely think about the consequences of your whims. However, I will stay if you require it of me. I pay my debts."

He had dragged his fingers through his dark hair and looked anything but happy. In fact, he looked as if he hadn't slept much that night. He has said other things as well, complex things, meaningless then to the child-woman she had been. She sometimes wished she had paid closer attention so she could analyze his words now with what she hoped was her growing maturity, especially since it was the last time he had spoken sharply to her or rather the last time there was any emotion in his voice at all. Like sarcasm and bitterness had downed out his love the blandness had seeped into every crevasse of their life together until it coated everything like molasses.

He had kept his word and stayed. She had initially been afraid he would change his mind again, that he would leave them at the first sign of trouble, but eventually that fear was replaced by a trust in the status quo that was grounded as little in true understanding as her fears. When the months turned into years they settled into a routine that would have contented a lesser woman. Only when Garreth was born had she briefly seen resurfaced in his eyes the old flight-instinct that her simple nature could not understand, especially when they had just made this glorious, perfect baby. In the end, he had not run except for some days to Dunmore landing after her confinement, and she was grateful when he returned. Perhaps he had really suspected the boy was not his child, although Rhett had never alluded to such unworthy suspicions and indeed gave no outward sign that he harbored them, auburn locks or no.

Not that she had given him any cause for doubt. Rhett had reinstated marital intimacy relatively early into their reconciliation, which at first had delighted her like a blushing bride but, as the nights marched on, confused her as well. Now that she was paying close attention to such things for the first time she discovered a rhythm to his desire that she quite correctly suspected had little to do with her at all, that she could have been any woman, at any place, at any time. His practiced hands gave her release although they never lingered on her body, but he would catch her wrists, firmly, if she tried to touch him in return. She eventually gave up trying.

He had initially insisted on preventatives he probably acquired through his connections to Atlanta's underworld but suddenly, about a year into their rapprochement, he stopped using them without any explanation and she almost immediately fell pregnant. She had hoped, briefly, hotly, that things would change when she told him she was with child, only to have that piece of information crash against his practiced blandness like a wave that had run out of force long before it reached the shore. He had listened to her earth-shattering announcement with perfect urbanity, and said -"I hope it will make you happy".

She hadn't understood then, or felt anything except crushing disappointment. Scarlett would be the first to admit that she hadn't understood much of anything about Rhett up to that point. As her pregnancy progressed she caught him watching her at times with a strange expression in his dark eyes, a close cousin to his old cat-before-the-mousehole look but disconcertingly different. He had insisted she rest, and himself overlooked her store in her absence, and she had complied out of fear for the baby. This forced inactivity gave her, perhaps for the first time in her adult life, long stretches of time to think, and to contemplate. As neither her mind nor her education were suited for novels or French philosophy she turned her hand to contemplation instead. With the ferocity of a girl obsessed by her first beaux, she contemplated Rhett.

And she had miraculously through those endless hot summer days arrived at a glimmer of understanding that he had given her this baby in part out of the kindness and pity he had professed and that she had detested, and perhaps even to turn the torrent of her life away from himself to a new focus. That he had not been fooled by her attempts to mimic his polished indifference, to fall into the steady comfortable rhythm of their marriage and appear to want no more. That her hopes, though vain and foolish and mostly silent, were still disturbing to his peace. That the blandness had demanded, and received, one final sacrifice to its shrine.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: The characters belong to MM.

Again, thanks for the reviews, they are much appreciated. I know it isn't a happy beginning and I see several ways it could progress and end. Will keep you posted.

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Chapter 5

She awoke after what was probably only a brief slumber, but felt refreshed nonetheless. She swung herself from the daybed and entered their room through the connecting door, intending to check on Rhett. She was surprised to see him sitting up again, with Garreth nestled against his chest. Garreth was apparently showing his father a rock and a leaf he had found in the park and now clutched in his fist, and regaling him with tales of a green snake he had seen with Ella.

They both looked up when she entered, an eerie resemblance in their expression despite their disparate features. Scalett smiled - one of the many gifts the good fairies had bestowed upon Garreth at his christening was his supreme indifference to his status as a sacrificial lamb. He had apparently decided he wanted to be reassured about Rhett's state of health, had found him, demanded a hug and a story and now was ready to be off again.

"Garreth. Daddy needs some rest now." Garreth hopped from the bed, giving both his father and his mother one of his famed limpid stares.

"It was a silly idea to ride Rouge Noir, Daddy. I've watched him. He spooks even when a swallow chirps by the stalls. He isn't safe to ride on Main Street. I would have thought you'd know better." The tone of mild reproof, entirely incongruous with his age and statue, made Scarlett grin.

Rhett nodded. "You are quite right, my boy. It was a silly thing to do."

She waited until Garreth had pulled the door behind him, and giggled. "I never know what he will say next. And he does know the horses better than anyone. Jack, the youngest stable boy, told me last week Garreth talks to them in their language and they do his bidding. I'm waiting for them to tell me he whistles the swallows down from the sky."

Rhett raised an ironic eyebrow. "Too bad he didn't put a word in with Rouge Noir not to throw me off."

She laughed. "How are you feeling?"

"Like hell". She had no trouble believing him, although his skin had regained some of the rugged color and he looked less like death chewed over and spit out than even this morning.

"Your mother and Rosemary are here".

He made an impatient movement, probably in anticipation of his mother's fussing. "I know. "

She sat down by his bedside, smiling with years of practice in ignoring her true feelings.

"Garreth has a point," she said gently. "It _was_ a rather silly idea to ride that horse."

He shrugged, the mantle of indifference already falling back onto his shoulders, the brief moment fading. "You wouldn't understand".

And there it was, right in front of her. The toll-bridge to a country in whose borderlands she had lived for nearly half a decade. Taking a deep breath, Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler stepped onto the windswept plains of adulthood, where few trees provide shade from the sun or the icy winds, but where clear sight is possible for the daring all the way up to the far horizons. She stepped forward firmly, and without even thinking to ask the price of admission. She was thirty-four.

"You haven't the first idea about what I understand Rhett."

It was, by anyone's standards, a mild outburst, and he had no way of knowing what it portended. His lips had quivered again with sardonic amusement, a more robust quiver than the one she had surprised earlier. "Indeed. Pray continue".

"In order to know what another person understands one would have to _talk_ to them. About other things than dinner, the weather, or the latest news from the farm. You haven't spoken to me about anything important since you came back five years ago. I used to wish you would. Pray you would." She shrugged., her eyes turned inwards, not knowing or caring that she was beautiful with her black hair waving about her shoulders and her strange eyes blazing. "I've long since accepted that you simply don't care anymore. God knows you've shown me often enough. But don't tell me what I do and don't understand."

"You startle me, Mrs Butler. But do share your perceptions. I am, I admit, not quite at my best, but I am waiting with... baited breath for your insight"

She sighed. "You're no different than other men Rhett. I used to think you were, but I just didn't know better. You ride the wildest horse in the stall because some part of you wishes you'll break your neck. Because you think you've done your duty and you have no one to answer to anymore. Just like Pa did after Mother died. We have money enough. You don't love me, Wade is gone, Ella will probably marry soon and Garreth is, well, Garreth. So you play with death because it's as close to feeling anything as you can get after losing Bonnie. And of course you're being a fool. But being a fool never stopped you."

There was an indefinable expression in his eyes when he looked at her.

"You have become quite the sorceress, my dear. Or is it a clairvoyant? In either case, it is rather disturbing. I feel the need to speak to our pastor about an exorcism of our humble abode once I'm recovered."

"More words, Rhett", Scarlett jeered. "You used to be good with words when you were still making an effort but I never thought they helped you much even then. I don't understand your words but your eyes say I hit close enough to the mark and you don't like it."

Strike two. He actually flinched this time. She felt a quick flush of triumph, and it made her careless. She picked up the plate with bread and cheeses and sat down on the bed. "Now eat. You need to regain your strength. Some silly person I once knew told me bodies mean nothing but they didn't know what they were talking about. About that, and other things either."

She wasn't quite sure what possessed her to bring up that broken wild night from another lifetime, but she relished the return of real anger into his black eyes.

Yet he said, almost lazily ,"An insight that must have been foremost in your mind when you banned me from your bed."

"Don't be tiresome, Rhett", Scarlett sighed. "I was little more than a child when you married me. How much of a child I only started to realize when I look at Ella. I was more mature than she maybe but not by much. And _you_ – you should have known better. When we were married you were even older than I am now. How could you have been so foolish?"

The sardonic smile had become a sneer. "I loved you. Thankfully, that was a mistake your obsession with the honorable Ashley Wilkes helped rectify." He was watching her narrowly now out of his good eye, like a fencer spoiled by past victories who suddenly finds himself unable to anticipate his opponent's next strike.

Scarlett took a deep breath. "I know how much I've hurt you when I thought I was in love with Ashley. I tried to make it up to you in every way that I knew except you never gave me half a chance. I understand losing Bonnie nearly killed you. I understand you don't care anymore and you're only here because of your so-called duty. But cutting yourself off from life is a _choice_ and you're making it every day and I am done, _done_ I tell you, watching you do this without saying something."

His face was like granite, and even the past blandness could not have rivaled the deceptive smoothness of his tone. "Perhaps not everyone has a mind so plastic or a memory quite so flexible. I seem to recall you didn't complain when my 'so-called duty' provided you with my presence at your dinner table and my money in your pocket. Or my warm body in your bed."

"Shut up Rhett," she said ferociously. "Do you think you've cornered the market on sacrifice? Don't you think I know what losing hope is? I've lived in this marriage for five years,_ five years,_ without a crumb of real affection. I've lost hope more times than I can count. I've had my deathless love almost wear out on me ten times over and had to rekindle it holding on to something, anything, that I loved about you. I've once lived through three months by reminding myself of your HANDS, for goodness sakes. Loving is something you _do,_ Rhett. It's work. It isn't something that stays alive without feeding it. Your love for me wore out because you stopped acting lovingly. I didn't.

She stopped, all emotion suddenly drained from her voice, her proud crest broken. "I couldn't have done indifference nearly as well as you," she whispered. "It would have been hate. And then where would we have been?"

And she spun around on her heels and left, slamming the door behind her, a sound the Butler household had not heard in many years.


	6. Chapter 6

A few days passed through her fingers like wheat. Rhett's physical recovery progressed smoothly, and very soon all that reminded them of the fall was a dark bruise over his left eye and the clean gash on his temple. Scarlett spent her days with Rosemary and Miss Eleanor, enjoying the lighter air that had descended on the late August days. The horses gallopped with Garreth over the meadow. Ella and her friends giggled under the huge shading trees, crisp and young, sharing their loves, their hopes and their secrets. Junebugs danced in the twilight when Scarlett and Rosemary sat on the porch in the evening. And along with the rest of the household, Scarlett was watching Rhett.

He had not, as she would have expected, simply picked up the dropped thread of their marriage and continued weaving its tranquil if indifferent tapestry. He never alluded to the scene in the bedroom, and he had refused to be baited into further outbursts even though she had thrown a few additional barbs at him out of sheer overwrought nerves. In some ways, it was as if it had never happened.

But something had changed. Ever since he arose from his sick-bed there was a new restlessness in his bearing, a distracted tone to his voice, and the emotions that she would see flicker in his eyes when he believed no one was watching him were as novel to her as they were undecipherable. Initially she was hopeful, that there was now something other than aloofness in their dark depth, something alive, but she soon conceded that whatever it was that had his mind in its grip was sharp-clawed and unpleasant. He was short-tempered where he had been cool and polite. He snapped at Ella for minor provocations, was curt with the servants and barely civil to his family. Only Garreth remained untouched by his fey moods, but a few times she caught Rhett staring at him with an expression that she had never seen before but made the fine hairs stand up on her arms and neck.

Had Scarlett been more experienced she might have likened his demeanor to an addict pining for his particular brand of poison; but as it was she only felt his discomfort and did not know how to soothe it.

She had taken to sleeping in their bed again and saw the restlessness follow him into his dreams, calling out words in languages she did not understand, calling out names that had no meaning to her. She slept lightly now and at times saw him get up from their bed and stare out of the window, hands clenched into fists, his swarthy knuckles turned white in the moonlight. Scarlett, although she would not yet admit this to herself, was beginning to fear for his sanity.

One of those nights, desperate to console him, she offered him her body as she had so often in the past; offered it because she had nothing else she could give him, because there was nothing else he would take. Newly arrived in adulthood she found that there were words that went with such offerings, soft words that rose naturally to her lips where before there had been only silence. He took her, took her words with an almost savage intensity, not like a man slacking his lust but, Scarlett thought, like a sinner seeking absolution, or the survivor of a shipwreck clinging to a lone piece of driftwood. In the morning, he could not look her in the eyes, but it happened again that night and again in those that followed, and she had no idea what to make of him. The growing understanding she had believed herself to have of his mind, the insight she had so assuredly thrown into his face a mere few days ago, had dissolved into a sea of confusion.

She was young, woefully under-educated, and the product of a society that sheltered its females from many harsher realities. She could not have guessed that Garreth, who she had believed to be Rhett's sacrifice to indifference, had been an offering to a much darker God.

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just playing with the characters in an angsty sort of way. Helen, regarding your comment: my thought was that they did have a regular sex life even after he returned, albeit not a passionate one, and that Rhett went back to using preventatives after Garreth's birth because he wanted to give her just that one child._


	7. Chapter 7

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.

Rhett awoke one morning from deep sleep to a bright dewy September morning, and it was as if the past days had been nothing more than a bad dream. He joined the family at the breakfast table, kissed his mother's cheek, ruffled Garreth's hair, pulled Rosemary's braid and asked his very dear Scarlett if she had slept well. The women at the table exchanged speaking glances and, almost simultaneously, let out a dry cough. Dilcey rolled her eyes. Rhett, seemingly oblivious, regaled them with humerous remarks all throughout breakfast, until Scarlett wanted to do nothing more than send for Dr Meade immediately to let him know her husband really, really, really needed his head examined. Miss Eleanor, who was of more philosophical inclination, wondered about the kinship of tragedy and comedy, and silently shrugged her shoulders.

His mood lasted all throughout the day and the next, and in fact he acted much like his old self, his self from long ago, before Bonnie's death, the self that had almost faded from their collective memory. Scarlett remained apprehensive, his mood-swings had been too volatile and unpredictable to trust in this one just because it happened to be one she preferred. And then Ella shyly reminded her of the charity ball.

The Butler family had built up a decent, if not overly warm, relationship with the Old Guard during the past five years. Scarlett had hosted the occasional sewing circle, donated to the appropriate causes, and attended the less exclusive dinners. Ashley's and India's move to Boston the first year after their reconciliation had aided their return to the fold, and now months passed at a time without Scarlett remembering Ashley's existence, or anyone bringing up his name. Maybelle Merriwheather had become something of a friend, although Scarlett suspected the friendship was fueled as much by young Raoul's decided preference for Ella as any particular sense of kinship with herself. Scarlett had bought the tickets to the ball months before, and now brought them up with Rhett, unsure if he would want to attend. To her surprise, he had agreed readily, stating it would "do them all good to get out." So they all went, the girls having spent half a day giggling over frocks and assisting each other with their hair and feeling, strangely, normal. Scarlett had procured additional tickets for Rosemary, leaving Miss Eleanor to enjoy a long-overdue night's rest.

Ella was lovely in virginal white and blue, her thick sandy hair, so much like Frank's, set with tiny pink roses. When they entered the room she immediately started exchanging glances with Raoul, vowing to dance every dance together that their mothers would permit them. Scarlett remarked silently to herself that it was a good thing her eldest daughter made up in sweetness what she lacked in intelligence, and that most men in Atlanta valued the former over the latter. Rosemary also danced every dance, and attracted the eyes of quite a few of the older bachelors in Scarlett's loaned low-cut red-and-white dress. Scarlett, although elegantly attired in green ball gown, was in a retiring mood for once, content to let Rosemary and Ella do most of the dancing. She distractedly answered questions about Rhett's recovery, swapped stories with Maybelle, Fanny and the other women, and watched Rhett out of the corner of her eyes. He stood almost across the room from her, laughing in a group of the men, apparently re-living his fall and their daring rescue if their gestures were anything to go by. She caught a glimpse of his expression, open, charmed, smiling, and told her foolish heart to stop beating in her throat. At the stroke of midnight the carriage would turn back into a pumpkin, and he would revert back into a stranger.

Suddenly, there was a shadow by her chair. "Shall we?"

Rhett. Scarlett hesitated. "Are you sure you're ….."

Instead of an answer he pulled her up, grabbed her hand, and led her onto the dance floor. Scarlett walked like a young filly with too many legs, and tripped twice on the way, which did not augur well. When the walz started she felt stiff and insecure in Rhett's arms, and the worst part was that his smile, though genuine, seemed tinged with a strange melancholy that she couldn't decipher. Then she shrugged. She was at a ball, and even Rhett Butler wouldn't stop her from enjoying it. So she dug her old coquettish smile out of some forgotten drawer, dusted it off with a vengeance, and danced with Rhett, Rene, Hugh, and a dazzling stream of men and allowed herself to pretend that the past fifteen years had been nothing more than a nightmare. She almost succeeded. And then everything shifted again.

-88-

In the days that followed the ball, Scarlett noted that Rhett was touching her. In broad daylight, and in front of others. She thought it was accidental at first, but then noted that he casually and purposefully would drop a hand on her shoulder when he spoke to her, or loop an arm across her waist, or press his lips, with a flourish, into her hair. She wasn't sure if he did it to disconcert her, but if he did, she decided, he could think again.

Growing up had, perversely, given her back some of the nonchalance that had made her so captivating as a young girl, coupled with an innocence and a vitality unusual for her age and experiences. She had, with an extreme act of will, kept bitterness from eating away at her heart for the last five years, and the hot desert sun had burned away at, if not eliminated, her native vanity and selfishness. Now that hope, however fickle, illuminated her she glowed from within like a summer nymph, her movements softly sensual, her eyes sparkling like emeralds, her smile open and inviting and her voice full of hidden joy.

Rosemary saw her with Garreth in the meadow, laughing, a garland of flowers trailing in her hair, and felt inexplicably apprehensive. Despite her spinsterhood even she could understand the power of that primal vortex that launched ships and shattered lives, and into Rhett's eyes came a hungry look when he was watching Scarlett that Rosemary hadn't ever seen before and told her more than words could have done that the universe had inexplicably shifted on its axis again and that nothing would ever be quite the same.

Scarlett seemed oblivious, and it would have taken more than Rosamary's experience to understand that this was an old, familiar game.

Scarlett let herself play it with abandon, reveling in the fact that she felt alive again. From the moment it began she had felt Rhett's eyes on her she knew how this particular game would play out. And with the touches, came the whispers. He would bend down, put his hand on her neck, and tell her she was beautiful, that she was looking "good enough to eat" and would accompany it with glances and innendoes that would have made her blush had she still been twenty-two. As it was, she kept her head high and thanked him sweetly, eyes wide open and innocent, a fake tremble to her lips that made him roar with laughter. She tried on other gestures for size, dragging a slow finger across her lower lip when she was sure he was watching her. She was quite pleased with her success when he turned away, visibly shaken. It would, in short, have all been perfect, had it not been for that one thing.

_Disclaimer: I still own nothing. _

_So here it is. Thanks for the kind reviews, I appreciated every one. I do know exactly were I am going with this so I hope some of the strange thoughts and expressions will come together at the end, especially regarding Rhett's relationship with Garreth. Dixie Cross, no, I don't want Rhett to turn into a Heathcliff although the comparison was apt and made me laugh. I believe he went through a Heathcliff phase though. Getting hit on the head messes with you. :)_


	8. Chapter 8

He hadn't kissed her. And much more strangely, they had not been intimate since the morning he had shaken his fey mood. Although the teasing and innuendoes continued into bedtime he always finished by given her a chaste kiss on her cheek, and bidding her good-night, turning himself away from her and falling asleep with aggravating rapidity. Until the day that he didn't.

It was a day that would be burned into Scarlett's memory for perpetuity. It had been another good day. The Indian Summer sun had lit up the meadows, and the leaves gleamed dark green, filled to the bursting point with the last pretense of summer. Rhett had taken Scarlett, his mother, Rosemary and the children to a picnic in the carriage. Garreth had been at his most delightful, singing songs in a high sweet treble to the cart horse that they had tied to a shady tree, feeding it shrubs and grasses and small hard apples. Ella had been content to be a child again for this one day, and Miss Eleanor and Rosemary feasted on the still unfamiliar novelty of the Butler household without tension. Rosemary, who was on the watch, noted that Rhett's eyes hardly ever left Scarlett, sitting like a wood fairy on a log, the soft wind freeing tendrils of black hair which blew around her face.

The good humor had lasted all through the day and the evening , throughout dinner and right until bedtime. And then the atmosphere changed and Scarlett would never know what had tipped it. She had said something inconsequential, sitting at her dressing table, getting ready for bed, brushing her long black hair until it shimmered in the lamplight. She had been laughing at him, her mind still full of sun and wind and apples, when he suddenly stood in front of her and reached out a large brown hand and tipped her face towards him, eyes lingering on her soft lips.

"Do you want to see if we remember how to do this?" he had whispered, huskily. He was too close, much too close. Scarlett felt a drumming sound in her head, a weakness in her knees and a wave of heat suffused through her body. She managed to hold his gaze and saw him looking back at her, seeing her, with desire in his black eyes and something indefinable that made her weak-kneed and foolish. It was like a dream, and Scarlett had become wary of dreams. She lifted her hand to touch his face, motor memory tensing her whole body with the expectation of his hand to come up to catch her wrist like before. But he held still while she traced her fingertips over his cheek and lips, like a blind person reaching into a stream to caress smooth round pebbles in the water. It was awkward, frightening, and oh, so terribly vulnerable, and every reptile instinct urged her to run, to hide from that naked black gaze. But she stayed. His face hovered above hers and she felt him tremble beneath her hand but he didn't move, and there was a waiting, suspenseful expression in his eyes that she didn't know. A subterranean well-spring of courage burst forth, and she suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his face down towards her and kissed him.

She didn't know what she had expected. He had drawn her onto the day-bed never breaking contact, kissing her leisurely for what seemed like hours, kissing her like he hadn't done since the night of his proposal. So long that she forgot how awkward it was, that she was uncomfortable in his arms, or that she was nervous, or that they hadn't kissed in many years. She had had to learn his lips again, the softness and the hardness of his mouth and later, the touch of his tongue, clumsy at first in its attempt to recall a forgotten rhythm. "It must all have been terribly confusing to you." he said whispered against her mouth when they finally separated for air. She had reached for him blissfully, wanting to pull his head back down to her, not confused at all until he suddenly caught her wrists and stopped her and a black veil came crashing back down and she twisted away from him. "Get away from me, you cad," she hissed. "What kind of a game do you think you're playing? I hate you! I'm not doing this. Ever again. Let me go!"

"Scarlett". His hands were on her, pushing back her hair, trying to pry her body open, trying to force her to look at him. "Scarlett". He pulled her on his lap and she resisted, fighting like a small feral animal against his huge brown hands that lifted her like a rag doll and pressed her against his chest. "Scarlett. Listen to me". Something in that voice got through to her fury and she lifted her eyes into a face as haggard as winter but with none of the blandness that had characterized it for so many years. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "We can't. We can't rush this Scarlett. Not again. There is too much broken … to much debris to cut our feet on if we are not very very careful. I don't know if it's possible to mend it. I know this makes no sense. We've been sleeping together for years and I've used you abominably these past nights but this is different. And there are things you need to know – things you deserve to know – before you make a choice whether you even want to try."

He arose from the settee and sat down on their bed, still holding her to his chest. "I don't want to run away. I want to hold you tonight but I must ask you not to touch me. If you do I will devour you whole and not even leave a crumb behind because I'm frightened and tense and drowning myself in a woman is the easiest way to escape. I don't want that." Scarlett saw the almost inhuman effort that revelation had cost him, and her fury ebbed slightly. "I need you to know that I'm not rejecting you although I understand why you would think so." She nodded into his chest. He exhaled. "We're both tired and drained and we need to sleep. Tomorrow, we talk. Properly." She nodded again, and with gentle hands he turned her slight form away from him until she was facing the wall. He drew the covers over her and slid up behind her, rested his chin on her shoulder and slung his arm lightly over her waist.

And Scarlett didn't know if to be hopeful, or devastated, or simply, terribly confused.

Disclaimer: The characters belong to MM

_And thanks for the reviews – I am loving the timeline discussion because that was always terribly hazy to me. I had Ella down as 13-14 if the story is 5-6 years after the ending of the book but maybe you'all are right and she is really 12-13 and we can't yet let her go to a ball. Poor Ella! :)_


	9. Chapter 9

Rosemary was back to understanding nothing. She had been hopeful about the direction her brother and sister-in-law's relationship was progressing, more hopeful than she had been since the day she met Scarlett, and now …..

Seemingly out of the blue, Rhett had ordered the carriage, and had announced he was taking his mother, Ella and Garreth to the plantation. He had ordered rather than suggested that she stay behind, to 'support Scarlett', whatever that meant. And Scarlett had had a dazed, deadened look in her face that Rosemary had never seen before. The departure was hasty, he gave his mother no time to pack more than essentials, and they left within the hour, Ella looking flustered and only Garreth looking unconcerned, trying to blow on a small wooden flute Rhett had whittled for him and seemingly oblivious to the swirl of emotions around him.

Scarlett had paced around the house, and Rosemary had followed her, unsure what her role was. She wondered what had happened to provoke this sudden departure. Rosemary watched her stop in front of the fireplace, and in sudden impulse, pick up a small vase, throwing it with all her might against the wall.

Then she had convulsed in sobs. "The bastard…..the no good rotten ….cad…."

Rosemary came up behind her, and hugged her close.

"Scarlett. What on earth did he tell you?"

"He said …" and in front of her eyes, she relived the horror of that conversation. But no words tumbled out.

And Rosemary just held her.

-88-

"When I left", he had begun, "I spent three months in Charleston and Savannah trying to forget. Bonnie, you, us, our entire miserable life together. Whenever I started to feel anything I found … a way to drown it out. I wasn't particular about the methods, but alcohol and women proved most reliable. I thought I would continue on the path of decadence until death claimed me, which I hoped would be sooner rather than later."

"But when I came back to see you I realized I had been fooling myself in thinking I still had the choice to make a clean break. I believed your obstinacy in pursuing your goal would damage your own health, and, what was worse, the health of the children. I had also been away long enough to realize that, to me, it did not matter where I was. If my physical presence in our household was what was required to protect you from an obsession that was harmful to you and others and that I had had no small part in creating - I was willing to pay that price."

"I had no intention of giving up my …. particular ways of suppression when I came back", he had continued." I can tell you, tell myself that I never promised to remain faithful but the truth is I never offered you the choice. When you insisted on accompanying me to Savannah and Charleston and even Europe I found it more difficult to get away when I needed to."

His words had rained down on her like a thousand tiny knives. And he had lied to her this entire time. "You went to see …. that woman ….even after you came back?" Scarlett had breathed, still not quite comprehending, grasping at the straw of the known in that sea of confusion.

"Scarlett." He had staring down on his hands. "I haven't seen Belle Watling in ages. Even Atlanta has much more sophisticated, and much more discreet, establishments these days. Why do you think that you've never heard even a rumor about any of this until today? But it doesn't matter. I can give you all the details of place and time and what went on exactly but I can promise you you will never be able to get the images out of your head. It's bad enough that I will have to live with them."

Sudden comprehension had come into her dull eyes. "The business trips. The political meetings. And you always seemed to have something to do so you could leave me for a while. And…" she had whispered, painfully, "Garreth ….."

"Scarlett". He had looked at her then, and his eyes were black holes into which she would fall at any second. "There is no excuse …. nothing to explain away what I did. I told myself having a baby would make you happier, that you deserved to have something of me that was actually alive, but the truth is I hoped having Garreth would distract you. Not just from your pursuit of me, as you have figured out, but from what I did. I was confident by that time that I would never allow myself to feel anything again and wasn't risking anything if you had another baby. I felt it might even be beneficial for my freedom of movement and mind. To put it bluntly, I hoped he would tie you down for a few years. And he did." He had paused, for the briefest moment. "I know there is no excuse for my actions, except that I was truly dead inside. Wade and Ella were in a good place. They were happy. I thought another child would make you happy and give me freedom, and I was willing to everything in my power to give the child a stable home. Everything except …"

"All this time," Scarlett had repeated painfully, "all this time, you've ….."

"Not for a while." His face had been drawn, empty. There had been a strange hollow echo in his voice that reminded Scarlett of other times, a man coming to the end of his reckoning and finding there is nothing left. "It ended when you were at Tara with Ella. Garreth was ….about two. It was late at night, almost eleven, and I was ready to go down the stairs to go out….. when I …..saw him. He must have climbed out the crib and was standing there at the top of the stairs, in his nightshirt, and clutching a blanket. "Don't go" he said. And he looked ….. so much like Bonnie in the dark. And I felt for an insane moment that he knew everything about me, all my failings as a father and as a husband, and that I had brutally calculated his arrival on this earth for my own ends. Not since Bonnie's death have I felt such shame. I knew even then that it was madness, that he was simply a baby who had woken up in the middle of the night. I put him back in his bed and he fell asleep almost instantly. But I couldn't leave that night and I haven't gone since. It was easier than I thought, because I had gotten so used to being numb that it wasn't even much of a hardship, it had been more of a habit I couldn't let go of.

And that's the way it remained until I fell. That night, when you came into the room - and you …touched me." Scarlett's eyes, filled with unshed tears, opened wide – he had been awake. Somehow, that was almost worse than all the other terrible confessions he was making, this last humiliation to her hopeless love. "I don't know if it was that or if my head had really been scrambled but I started…..feeling something again that night. At first it was only agony - the grief, the pain- and I couldn't suppress them anymore. I couldn't numb them either because every time I saw Garreth I remembered the shame of that night and it seemed worse, somehow, than anything else I could possibly endure. So I stayed. So when you ….I took you, and you didn't run, and then ….. somehow ..it got easier. And it occurred to me that that is the one thing I hadn't tried, is to feel all the emotions and see if there is something on the other side.

The next day, when we talked, I realized one other thing that I hadn't even considered before. That I, in my selfishness, had…. trapped you, by giving you Garreth. Had you had …that realization about your love wearing out, without him, you could have left me. Now, you no longer had that choice. And I repaid you by lying to you.

And then ….." he had continued, "After the torrent was spent, I ….felt alive again. It sounds trite, but …..when you've been dead for so long feeling alive, even a little, is a miracle. And ….I realized that I desired you. I'd thought I'd forgotten what that is. You have no idea, Scarlett, what that means to a man who thought he would never want anything or anyone again. It was so tempting to just …..follow that desire and start over. You would have made it easy for me, you would have told yourself that I had finally come to my senses and never known what lay behind it. But I would have known. And eventually, that would have destroyed everything again. If I start lying to you now, eventually I will start lying to you about other things as well. And I can't do that again.

There had been a deep silence, the silence of caskets in houses of mourning. "Where do we go from here?" Scarlett had asked, mechanically. She felt empty. As if every possible feeling had been carved out of her and left nothing but gaping holes. She saw, for the first time in her life, the temptation of the abyss, the blandness that Rhett had lost himself in. How pleasant it would be to simply feel nothing.

"I don't know, Scarlett. Kissing you last night was the sweetest thing that happened to me in years but I knew even then that it was just one last deceit. I am not even sure what I can offer you if you … want to remain my wife in more than in name. I feel the need to hold you, to touch you, and I want to make love to you so much it hurts but I am not sure if I will ever be able to feel the kind of love again that you once wanted. I could lie to you now and maybe you would forgive me but I can't. The only thing I can promise to be honest. I can promise to come to you instead if you can bear it, if I'm afraid, or in pain. I want you to come to me if you're angry, or devastated, even if I caused it. I don't know if that'll be enough, if we can build on that or if simply too much has been broken." He had drawn a deep breath, his black eyes measuring her, measuring himself as a horse trader would measure a pack of not very promising draft animals hitched to a mountainous load. And he had smiled, with terrible sadness. "I'm afraid you will have to make that choice."

_Disclaimer: They belong to MM._

_Owwie, painful chapter. One more left._


	10. Epilogue

Epilogue

The twins were born in the first week of June, a girl and a boy.

Scarlett had gone to him one windy afternoon in November, telling him she was pregnant, and that she wanted them to try again. Leaving most of her illusions and girlish hopes behind her, and bringing her losses and her gains. "I want you to know that I would have made the same decision regardless, even without the baby. It would have been easy to pretend otherwise, to save my pride. But we said no more lies." And he had nodded, with grave humility, and thanked her.

And somehow, the world was turning again after being arrested in space.

And so as fall turned into winter they went bravely about the business of reconstructing their marriage out of nothing but shards, determination and gritty will, and a commitment, not precisely to each other, but to the truth. It was both harder and easier than Scarlett had expected. He took a fierce interest in her pregnancy, and told her of his fears for this child, for Garreth, and Ella. She told him she was afraid he would betray her again, now that she would have not one, but two children to tie her down. And still they went on. Rhett discovered that she could bear even his darkest emotions, his deepest shame without breaking, and she learned, as winter turned into spring, that their bodies could reveal and work out what their words could not, even her fury and pain. They both could not have said if this harsh honesty could be called love, or if it even mattered. But when Scarlett, at the peak of summer, brought the babies out to the orchard for the first time, and Rhett held his new-born daughter in the shade of the old apple tree, noting her eyes were round and blue, they both felt the strange sense of someone who had been running without knowing where, and then found they had unexpectedly arrived at a place where they could rest for a while. And Ella, laughing, swung her new brother around and around until he meowed in protest.

And Pan, god of the herds and flocks, sat on the fence and watched them flute in one hand, his trusted horses standing patiently by his side, the July sun scattering rich gold over his hair. And they neighed and nickered softly to each other; perhaps agreeing it had been a long, but a good, year's work.

* * *

_Disclaimer: I do not own them, they belong to MM_

_So there it is. Thank you for reading, and the reviews. Not too long ago I would have agreed with those of you that said, run, Scarlett, and don't look back. But now, I am no longer sure how to weigh everything and how the loss of Bonnie would have cast a shadow over everything including his sense of morality, until he realized even grief is no longer an excuse for his actions. His main mistake may have been coming back too quickly and not allowing himself to grieve properly, but in a twisted way he told he was doing everybody a favor, and his return did allow the children to prosper. After his revelation, with three children by Rhett, Scarlett's only option in that society would have been to live out her life alone, comfortable perhaps, because he would have supported them, but alone, and she would still have to deal with him on some level because of the children. So when she says "this is my choice," she takes back power over her life. __Oh, and one more thing that indeed wasn't clear except in my own mind- he wasn't running after they had the discussion. S__he kicked him out that time. As in "go away, you bastard, and take the kids until I call for you, if I ever do. I need time to think." _Let's also not forget that a man's infidelity wasn't viewed in quite the same way back then as we view it today, although it still would have hurt her greatly.

_In my mind, he is at the very least, truly remorseful, and has stopped running, and rejected the easiest choice, which was to keep lying. And then there is life, and choices. And we make them, imperfectly, and some are made for us, by our circumstances or by our times, and we try to live with them. And try to atone for our mistakes, as best we can. And I firmly believe the Gods or the Universe sometimes allow for the weight of a feather to atone for our sins, if there is true remorse. And maybe sometimes even, briefly, find something like grace. And here, Garreth is the "divine grace", that bit of good luck we don't at all deserve, but which sometimes comes into our lives nonetheless, the water that runs through the crack in the stones until everything bursts open and can start anew._

_Thank you for the discussion, it's really interesting to hear what everyone thinks! _


End file.
